Tortured Jehovah’s Witnesses, half of Russia's woman-billionaire population, and a lousy proposal to crack down on election monitoring Thursday, February 21, 2019 This day in history: 24 years ago, on February 21, 1995, Russian President Boris Yeltsin and Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko (still a brunette) signed a cooperation agreement that became the foundation for the Union State of Russia and Belarus, which some believe Vladimir Putin might command in the future, in order to remain